Fire Vs Fire

Fire consumes everything. Its thousand fanning mouths devour anything that crosses its path. Fire can create a maelstrom and an inferno in a moment, destroying everything, sending plumes of smoke into the sky. Such is the power of destruction that we ought to be careful with it.

Fire external

But there is a fire, which is deadlier, darker and more dangerous that the fire mentioned above. This fire can create a collateral damage for the entire humanity. This is the fire in the senses.

Fire in the Senses:

The fire ensues when the senses come in contact with the sense objects. Particularly, the eyes, which is a powerful sense organ, which ignites in contact with a sense object. What happens then? The fire devours the sense object, unmindful of the obstacle it poses – even to the point of death, subduing the rules of society and law in its blind charge towards the sense object and circumventing any right mode of attaining the object.

This is the beginning of a cycle, the beginning of a movement contrary to the peace; the beginning of an expectation towards the object, the beginning of disappointment in not getting the object and at last, the beginning of fury towards the object, and beginning of a resolution in destroying the object. This the beginning of a deadlier cycle, which exposes the human moral frailty – in the form of greed, seething anger, and annihilation.

Destruction – this is where it ends. We in our lives, often create these cycles and destroy ourselves. The result is pain and suffering. The fire of senses has often destroyed our lives. The external fire becomes meaningless, which pales into insignificance when compared to this inner fire.

Fire Vs Fire:

                2500 years ago, there was an encounter between ascetics, who worshiped fire and performed rituals and Buddha, the enlightened, who recognized the portent of the latter fire. Buddha perceived the fire rituals to be meaningless unless the inner fires are quenched. He perceived a world of fire phenomena. Everything was burning to him. He, in his vision, pursued the train of burning, beginning from senses, sense objects, contact, lust, hatred, and delusion etc., to pain, sorrow, aging, and death, leading to a series of infinite births and deaths.

Fire dented by Buddha

                The ascetics, bent on performing fire rituals, were unmindful to the sense of urgency in quenching the inner fire. They still seemed to be attached to the objects of the world, thinking it to be permanent. Buddha questioned the efficacy of fire rituals when the inner fires of desire, hatred and delusion remained.

The Fire Sermon:

                "Bhikkhus, all is burning.”

"The eye is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact for its indispensable condition that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs…….”

This is the famous fire sermon of Buddha, which ends by an earnest appeal from Buddha to desist from all contact with sensual objects.

This sermon took a major jolt on the ancient Hindu religious practices, which were then predominantly ritualistic in nature. In the later period, Hinduism incorporated various teachings of Buddha and even went to the extent of recognizing Buddha as an avatar of Lord Vishnu.

Ritual Slaughter:

But rituals are not completely obliterated. Many gory forms of rituals, in the form of animal sacrifice, still prevail in the multi-faceted Hindu religion and the recent one which witnessed a huge hue and cry is the slaughter of more than 200, 000 animals (buffaloes and goats) in Gandimai festival in Nepal. The CNN dubbed it as the ‘World’s biggest ritual slaughter’.

Gory rituals in Nepal

I feel, we still have not grasped or fully incorporated the teachings of Buddha, except idolizing him as God. Religion still had to move from primitive – animal slaughter and ritualistic to a more broadening of love and meditation.

Thank You.

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